


Swimming Hole

by texanfan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texanfan/pseuds/texanfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Sheppard enjoys a little downtime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming Hole

**Author's Note:**

> This work was remixed at http://archiveofourown.org/works/189537

John tested the rope he had just secured to the tree limb. It was a perfect limb, almost exactly parallel to the ground, thick and strong and, best of all, directly overhanging the clear, deep pool below.

He turned to his team, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Now, this is going to be fun.”

Teyla smiled indulgently at him as she dangled her feet in the water. He suspected Lt. Cadman had lent her the black bikini she was sporting. Ronon at least looked curious as he surveyed John’s handiwork, tugging on the rope to make sure it would bear his weight. John wasn’t sure how he’d come by Speedos and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Rodney glanced up from his laptop momentarily before returning to his calculations.

“Put the laptop down, McKay,” he ordered. “An afternoon off does not mean you and Zelenka texting each other.”

Rodney set the laptop aside with ill grace. “I don’t see why you need me to show Teyla and Ronon the finer points of backwoods swimming.”

“Do you not wish to join us, Rodney?” Teyla kept the hurt from her voice, but there was a trace of it in her face, if you knew where to look. John was ready to strangle Rodney. The recent loss of Charin was part of the reason he’d arranged this little outing, to get her mind off her grief.

Rodney seemed to get it and stammered. “No, no, that’s not it. I just don’t have the happiest memories of these things.” He looked down and tugged at his t-shirt as if showing a slice of pale skin between the shirt and his swim trunks would be a cardinal sin.

“Perhaps this is an opportunity to make new memories then,” Teyla suggested.

Rodney looked longingly at his laptop. “I don’t generally do well with group activities.”

John wasn’t sure if Rodney was being petulant or regretful. Either way it was time to lighten the mood with a little well placed jibe. “Can’t imagine why,” he said in a voice proclaiming loudly he knew exactly why.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rodney narrowed his eyes, broken out of maudlin mode and ready for a verbal sparring match.

John indicated Rodney’s Lion King t-shirt which proclaimed, “I’m surrounded by idiots.” “You’re the only person I know who can insult people without even opening your mouth.”

“I thought being colorblind disqualified you from the Air Force,” Rodney fired back, eyeing John’s multi-colored board shorts.

Before John could come back with a sufficiently scathing quip Ronon interrupted. “We here to swim, or what?” He was swinging the rope between his hands, obviously ready to jump.

“Oh, no you don’t,” John charged up the bank to relieve Ronon of the rope. “I go first.” He took a couple of steps backward and then swung out over the pool. When he’d hit the highest point of his arc, he cannonballed into the water below.

He broke the surface flinging water out of his face. Teyla grimaced as the spray hit her, then she laughed. It was a hot day the cool water glorious, from her smile, John guessed that Teyla agreed after the initial shock of being doused.

“Seems easy enough.” Ronon took the rope in his hands and got a running start before flinging himself out into space. He released the rope, gaining just a bit more height, then jackknifed into a perfect dive.

When he surfaced, grinning, John splashed him. “Show off.”

Teyla swung out on the rope, her release ending in a smooth, graceful arc into the water.

“Right, this means war,” John declared, as he scrambled up the bank. He knew there was no way he was going to take Teyla or Ronon but he had to try. He’d made two acrobatic attempts, the second one a spectacular failure, when he realized they were missing their problem child. A quick check up the bank and he spotted McKay, back on his laptop, working away.

“McKay, I thought I told you to put that thing up!”

Rodney looked startled. Did he honestly believe they wouldn’t notice he wasn’t joining them?

Ronon climbed out and dripped on McKay. “Careful you oaf!” McKay shouted, shutting away his precious laptop before it could get wet. “This one isn’t waterproof.”

“Come on, McKay.” Ronon offered Rodney a hand up, which Rodney took with trepidation.

John knew Rodney was still skittish from the whole submerged jumper thing, but he needed to get back on the horse and no time like the present to do so. “Just one time, Rodney. Jump once and I’ll get off your back.”

Rodney surveyed the rope Ronon handed him like it was a poisonous snake. He tossed it away like it might have bitten him, too. “It’s all well and good for you and your ridiculously perfect bodies,” he scoffed, sweeping them all with a baleful gaze. “I’d just as soon not be the comic relief, thank you all the same.”

John, who was pretty sure the role of comic relief fell to him at the moment, was somewhat unsympathetic. It was times like these he was very lucky to have Teyla on his team.

“Rodney, we would never allow harm to come to you,” she explained, somehow communicating that he was as safe from mocking laughter as physical harm in their company.

Rodney’s eyes darted to Ronon who was putting a big swing knot in the rope so Rodney could hold on easier. Rodney blinked at him as he handed the rope over again. This time Rodney took it. He glanced at John, “One time?”

John nodded, smiling broadly. “Just one, then you can splash around here and make fun of us.”

“Right.” Rodney took a tight double hold on the rope, closed his eyes tightly and swung out over the swimming hole.

Then he swung right back to the bank.

He collided with Ronon, causing him to take a step back as he absorbed Rodney’s momentum and steadied him.

Rodney peeked open one eye. Finding himself secure on terra firma he gaped at Ronon. “You caught me.”

“Didn’t want you to smash into a tree.”

Left to his own devices, Rodney might stop right now. Pushing him would just make him dig in his heels so John chose a different tack. “You don’t have to jump, Rodney,” he relented. “Just climb down here with us.”

Rodney was still staring at Ronon as if he were the answer to some complex physics problem. He spared John a brief glower, took a determined hold of the rope and swung out over the water.

His release was short of the rope’s highest point and he had no form whatsoever, but he splashed down without doing a bellyflop. John and Teyla converged on his entry point just as he broke the surface.

“That was better than your last one, Sheppard,” Ronon declared from the bank.

John couldn’t really argue. He always screwed up when he tried to do the fancy dives. That didn’t stop him giving Ronon a death glare.

Teyla reached over and squeezed Rodney’s shoulder, a pleased smile on her face.

Rodney wore a huge grin like he’d just won a marathon. “That was actually fun, I’m doing it again.”

“Not before I do better than my last dive,” John insisted, racing him for the bank.

Laughter called their attention to the rope as Ronon executed another perfect dive. “Sometimes I really hate him,” John muttered.

“Nah,” Rodney said, blinking the water out of his eyes. “The trick is to change the rules of the game.”

They spent the next hours competing for who could make the biggest splash. Ronon still won but John couldn’t seem to care.


End file.
